NCPs Aren't Paying?

Paying for College
1

<p>There seem to be a lot of comments in different threads to the effect that NCPs ought to be filling out FAFSA. Anecdotally, I'm familiar with the case of a CP with EFC of about $18K who won't pay a dime of that, and can hardly be bothered to fill out a custodial FAFSA, even if only for the purpose of enabling merit grants. So those blanket statements get a little tiresome.</p>

<p>Most private colleges using CSS Profile already require the NCP supplements. Based on experiment with Stanford's and Princeton's on-line calculators, they seem to calculate the EFC separately for two households. Over a wide range, the total EFC is significantly less than if you had both parental incomes/assets in one household. The FAFSA-only schools don't meet need anyway. If FAFSA took the same separate-household approach to NCPs, there may not be a significant effect on financial aid. Furthermore, if the CP is receiving child support from the NCP, that should be backed out of the NCP's FAFSA to avoid double counting.</p>

<p>Consider also the impact on college students, who cannot force their CP, NCP, or married parents to actually meet any portion of their calculated EFC. The real issue should be whether college education can remain widely accessible. Parents ought to be sticking together on this issue.</p>

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<p>I am one who thinks NCP info should be included on FAFSA…IF…at least one of the following is true.</p>

<p>1) the NCP paid child support </p>

<p>2) the NCP had shared custody (this reason ESPECIALLY!!!)</p>

<p>3) the NCP has been involved with the child’s life…visitation, etc.</p>

<p>There’s just too much game-playing going on as to who files FAFSA when both parents are involved with the child. </p>

<p>If the NCP wasn’t involved, didn’t pay child support, didn’t do visitation…then excluded.</p>

<p>If the NCP refuses to cooperate, then he’s no different than many intact homes that don’t pay/cooperate.</p>

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<p>This is exactly how I look at it!</p>

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<p>NCP should for sure be on the application. If not then you would have a situation where parents divorce for the sake of financial aid and the CP rents some cheap flat in the ghetto and uses it as a mailing address… Total way to game the system.</p>

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<p>To me, if an NCP is involved with a child’s life, he’s no different than a parent from an intact family. His interest in the child’s college education should be the same. Whether he pays or not is the same as intact parents…he may pay, he may not pay. </p>

<p>“he” in this case is generic.</p>

<p>And…yes…people do game the system!</p>

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<p>There is no way to compare intact families and divorced parents. I do think states should allow divorce courts to require payments. And btw, if NCP isnt paying CS, why hasnt CP taken NCP to court?</p>

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<p>Does anyone know of anyone who has ever actually tried this? I’ve heard it used, but I’ve never so much as even heard of a “oh, my friend’s brother” did this type of story about divorcing for FA.</p>

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<p>A couple of enduring CC myths are in the original post. Perhaps this can be a good thread to put them to rest:</p>

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<p>This is simply not true. If you count the total number of CSS Profile schools, there are around 350. Of that total, approximately one third require the non-custodial form. So it would be more correct to say that most CSS Profile schools do not require non-custodial parent information. This of course doesn’t include schools that have their own financial aid forms.</p>

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<p>Again not true. I know this from my son’s school where need is more than met with generous scholarships and grants. It would be more correct to say that most FAFSA-only schools don’t meet need, but there are some out there that do.</p>

<p>With regards to requiring the non-custodial FAFSA, I’m guessing the effect would be chilling for those who need the grants the most; single-parent homes where the non-custodial parent is nowhere to be found.</p>

<p>I think one solution is education of divorce lawyers and mediators to ensure that they can advise their clients going through divorce on what the laws for child support are in their state and how to use the law to ensure that there’s a plan for college for the children. When children are young, divorcing parents might not even consider that a college fund is necessary or possible, or know how to go about setting one up. Really, who among us was aware when our kids were in kindergarten that public college would cost $30,000/year?</p>

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<p>I’ve never seen anyone divorce for FA, but there are people who have “separated” (ha ha) for FA. (However, there is a case here on CC where a man is considering this). </p>

<p>I’ve seen more of the fake separations…
One spouse changes addresses to a nearby relative’s home and claims to live there. It’s very hard to prove that the person doesn’t really live there. It’s not like they send spies out to see where the person spends the night. </p>

<p>Heck, there was a case here on CC where the parents had been separated for YEARS, but were still living under one roof…dad was in the basement and claiming that HE had custody and he earned little money. That was fishy looking to me…</p>

<p>*The FAFSA-only schools don’t meet need anyway. *</p>

<p>Most don’t meet need. And if you have a lot of need, it’s really hard for them to do so unless it’s a state school, and you’re instate, and there is state aid to help…(like the UCs who do a good job with 0 EFC kids because of STATE aid). </p>

<p>But…the UCs are a prime example of where a lot of game-playing is done for FAFSA purposes. It’s common for divorced parents to “share custody” in Calif…yet only one parent’s income is used…usually the mom’s. Dumb.</p>

<p>I think one solution is education of divorce lawyers and mediators to ensure that they can advise their clients going through divorce on what the laws for child support are in their state and how to use the law to ensure that there’s a plan for college for the children.</p>

<p>Absolutely…at a minimum, there should be a stipulation that at least the cost for a local state univ should be split. That value could increase depending on the financial status of the spouses.</p>

<p>With regards to requiring the non-custodial FAFSA, I’m guessing the effect would be chilling for those who need the grants the most; single-family homes where the non-custodial parent is nowhere to be found.</p>

<p>If my suggestion were used, that wouldn’t be an issue.</p>

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<p>The poster said as much. The point is that the unqualified statement is wrong.</p>

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<p>What is true is that nearly every single school that uses FAFSA only for financial aid does not guarantee meeting full need. That does not mean that someone going to a school that uses FAFSA only does not get a full need package. If you look up the schools that use FAFSA only and look at the % of need met in aggregate, you can see that the chances of having your need met 100% are usually less than half.</p>

<p>However, need defined by FAFSA can be a whole heck of a lot more than need met defined by PROFILE. Yes, it is possible to do better at a FAFSA only school than a school that guarantees to meet full need as defined by PROFILE. </p>

<p>The more generous schools in terms of giving out financial aid in absolute dollars and percentage of costs tend to be the ones that are more picky in getting and using financial aid information with a few exceptions such as Harvard and few other schools that have a wider range of eligibility. My friend who is remarried, and has children from her first marriage who have college funds in their names from their grandparents, was aghast that those amounts needed to be included as family assets on some PROFILE forms. Had nothing to do with the stepchildren from the second marriage, but that’s just too bad. But those schools do meet 100% of need, as they define it.</p>

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<p>I think including both “parents” is the right thing to do. There are so many permutations of family the least of which is “shared custody” which in itself implies that the parents are “sharing” in the raising of the child. We have families of two same sex raising an adopted child or a child born to one of the couple. </p>

<p>Colleges that require NCP have developed waiver situations for parents who are lost in space, are unknown since birth, etc. etc., it can’t be that difficult for FAFSA to tie into both parents, especially now that it has the capability to pull from the tax forms. Need is need and most likely will prove out regardless if there are one or two “parents.” </p>

<p>Parents that are unwilling to pay are parents that are unwilling to pay. Those parents occur both in intact families as well as separated families at all income levels and really has no bearing on whether one or two custodial parents fill out FAFSA.</p>

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<p>I think that it is a fact that in more cases than not, ncps in a divorce situation refuse to contribute much. FAFSA is based on the reality in this case. Not that it is fair. If dad’s a millionaire and mom has very little income, a kid can be eligible for PELL. It’s unfair that if your family is intact and one parent refuses to pay, you are not eligible for federal aid, but are if the family is split up. </p>

<p>But we are usually talking about $5500 at most of PELL and subsidized interest. THere are not a whole lot of cases where someone gets a boatload of money from a FAFSA only school with a well to do NCP. </p>

<p>I have been shocked at the number of well to do ncp (and they have all been the dads) who refused to pay for college for their kids because it was not stipulated in the divorce papers. They felt they were financially reamed for so much that they just wouldn’t do it. All well educated men who supposedly put a huge premium on education but when it came to the money they would not pay. One such situation was one very close to our family, and I would not have believed it had I not been there to see it.</p>

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<p>CPT, there are a handful of states, including NY, NJ and Mass, that can order a NCP to pay. I urge everyone to support those laws. Why should I have to pay taxes so a dentist’s son gets federal aid?</p>

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<p>Okay, this was supposed to be just about the numbers. For example, when I mentioned child support, it had nothing to do with taking someone to court. The point is, whenever you think NCP has $net income but pays child support, the NCP’s FAFSA amount would be reported as $net minus $child<em>support because the CP’s FAFSA already included $child</em>support.</p>

<p>I had to dig into why I had the misconception about NCP Profiles, and it’s probably the schools we looked into. There are 19 CC Top Universities; 17 Profile and 12 NCP Profile. There are 30 CC Top Liberal Arts Colleges; 29 Profile and 26 NCP Profile. There are 8 Ivy League schools; 7 Profile and 7 NCP Profile. Princeton has their own form, and requires NCP data only if there is not a step-parent in the picture. As it now stands, FAFSA does include step-parents.</p>

<p>There are plenty of threads on this forum to the effect that FAFSA-only schools don’t meet need. If you want to argue that for some students they do, fine, but it’s not a good argument for changing FAFSA policy.</p>

<p>My state used to allow courts to order NCP contributions, but it was overturned for two reasons. First, married parents can’t be ordered to pay for college. Second, it drags on the divorce process for years when the court would rather see a clean break.</p>

<p>On “gaming the system”. People time their incomes and purchases, get married or don’t get married, live together or not, shift assets, or agree to trade child exemptions, for all sorts of reasons - taxes, health insurance, etc. And if they want to do that for financial aid purposes, so what, as long as they don’t break the law? If the rules change, people will just game them differently to their best advantage.</p>

<p>Having said that, the term “shared custody” is fuzzy. For most purposes, the parent with >50% financial support or >50% overnights is the primary custodian. There should be only one parent who can file FAFSA.</p>

<p>There isn’t as much EFC available from NCPs as many posters on this board seem to think.</p>

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<p>My neighbors separated for financial aid reasons. The mom stayed in the house, the dad moved into an apartment with a friend. Within a couple months the dad had a new girlfriend and asked for a divorce. He may have had the girlfriend all along and just used the financial aid angle as a reason to move out of the family home. I know the mom never had an inkling. She was shocked. Just goes to show, if your spouse says “it would be better for kiddo’s financial aid if I moved out” watch out! ;)</p>

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<p>WhydoIcare…once kids are out of HS, the NCP isn’t usually still paying child support (except for NY and maybe some state that I don’t know about).</p>

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<p>Younger siblings still get child support.</p>

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<p>Hmm it seems like you guys are awfully pessimistic (or I am yet too na</p>

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<p>Darian - you can look here <a href=“https://profileonline.collegeboard.com/prf/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet.srv[/url]”>https://profileonline.collegeboard.com/prf/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet.srv&lt;/a&gt; for Profile schools that don’t require NCP Profile. None of the Ivy League schools are in that category, but you can still find some highly regarded schools. Gettysburg College, University of Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, UNC-Chapel Hill, Southern Cal, Carnegie Mellon, Bucknell, etc, etc. Almost any school not listed there would be FAFSA-only. </p>

<p>If your Dad will fill out the NCP Profile, it doesn’t mean he has to actually pay his EFC and it just enables you to get aid from a Profile school. If he doesn’t make much money, his EFC will be low anyhow. In other words, it doesn’t cost him anything but time to fill out the forms, and so maybe he will do it. It’s not a trivial request; those forms can be more invasive than a tax return, but it doesn’t actually cost him anything. Let me suggest you ask him directly, as an adult, rather than have your Mom do it. Unfortunately if he won’t fill out the NCP Profile for a school that requires it, that school won’t consider you for financial aid. If he’s been paying child support, and you know how to contact him, the school probably won’t waive the NCP form. But in that case you can still look at the FAFSA-only schools and the Profile schools that don’t require NCP Profile.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>